As a consumer, it sucks the big one and I'm completely understanding of why people are bitching. From a business perspective, they would be insane not to raise prices if they are indeed running with such a huge backlog.
When I get too busy and have too much work the first thing I do is raise prices. It quickly weeds out those clients that suck up 80% of my time and only generate 20% of my revenue. I realize Stern is in the manufacturing business, but the same logic applies.